07/25/2013

Blameless — Humans Just Can't Help Themselves

Dear fellow-sufferers,

It was pretty easy for me to write this blog over the last 42 months. Aside from whatever talent I might have, the reason it was easy to write DOTE was that once I began to remove myself from the largely unconscious world humans live in, and started looking at human behavior from the perspective of a true outsider, it became easier and easier to deconstruct the Human Condition.

For example, take that Elon Musk post I wrote earlier this week. I just whipped that out, it was like falling off a log, because from where I was sitting this hopeless techno-optimist's money-making schemes are ludicrous. I was simply describing what was in plain sight for your benefit. To me, Elon and others like him simply look ridiculous, especially in the context of the enormous, self-created problems humans face in the 21st century.

Now, if my perspective on the Human Condition is "correct" in some sense, and my view of Human Nature is also "correct" in some sense, and by writing DOTE itself I have (for myself) confirmed the "correctness" of those views over and over again, it follows that humans are very limited animals. Their behavior is heavily constrained in ways which they can not possibly begin to fathom. This is a necessary outcome of the deterministic outlook I sketched out in my posts about the reality of the unconscious and Flatland. And although my views are easily falsifiable, they have not been falsified by anything I've seen.

For example, and mark my words, there is geo-engineering in your future. Wait for it.

It also follows that my running commentary on human folly is necessarily invisible to humans in the general case. And it has been. DOTE has no natural constituents, unlike liberal websites, investment/economics websites, social media websites, doomer websites, and all the rest.

However, if humans can only make very limited choices and their behavior is thus so heavily constrained, as I first outlined in my Free Will post, it also follows that humans are not to blame for the absurd or wantonly cruel and destructive things they do.

In short, humans are largely blameless because they just can't help themselves. After all, from my perspective they are not making choices; they are simply acting out their nature—Homo sapiens is a species, so what you see is what you get.

So what I have described on DOTE over these last 42 months is a classic Ancient Greek tragedy, where a figuratively "blind" person pursues his inevitable Fate or destiny (harmartia). Oedipus unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother, thus bringing disaster down upon his city and family.

Briefly, there are three broad classes of unconscious people.

the completely, hopelessly unconscious (e.g. Elon Musk)

the mostly unconscious

the partially conscious

Of those in the first group, nothing more can be said, and certainly nothing can be done. Of those in the very small third group, you know who you are—Realists (but not emotionally distraught and thus terminallly confused doomers), or people coming to grips with the Human Condition, or people who have glimpsed the ongoing human tragedy, or people who are not waiting for (hoping for?) "the collapse" but who know that eventually in the 21st century it will come because it's an inevitable outcome of human overreach.

The second group, those who are mostly unconscious, is more interesting. This group includes standard pro-growth environmentalists or "liberals" in the classic sense—basically, anybody, regardless of some inevitable political persuasion, who believes deeply in the secular religion called Progress. This group is especially tragic in the sense outlined above because it seems to me that these types do know, albeit unconsciously, that human action (e.g. pursuing endless growth) is destroying the biosphere and, ultimately, will destroy Homo sapiens itself. They are killing their children, or their children's children, and can do nothing about it.

But these "good" people are unable to bring these "suicidal instincts" into consciousness, and thus they are destined to destroy themselves even as they yean for a better world which will always be unavailable to them.

Now, if humans are "blameless" because they can only think (using the term loosely) and behave in very limited ways, it also follows that it is a bit unfair for me to rub their noses in it over and over again. And I have certainly done that over these last 42 months.

Still, I think it had to be done, even though, necessarily, it does no good. But carrying on seems to me like beating a dead horse, and I have grown weary of beating that horse. And also remember that you can lead that horse to water, which I did, but you can not make it drink. And now we know why.

This doesn't mean I will be eager to hang around with humans in the future. After all, they can be cruel, they are certainly untrustworthy, and you never know when some form of human shit will hit the fan you're standing in front of. In the end, they don't know what they're doing or why they're doing it. I've seen that over and over again, both in my personal life and the larger public life I write about.

Tomorrow is the last day.

People are tricky
You can't afford to show
Anything risky, anything they don't know
The moment you try
Kiss it goodbye

From my perspective, what you have done with DOTE is exactly what Schopenhauer meant with his compassionate suggestion that attempting to reduce misery for fellow-sufferers is a rational response to the tragedy of existence.

He too used to growl occasionally at people who offended his intellect - especially those who made noise with their mouths without bothering to think first. Famously, this included a woman gossiping loudly outside his door, and to whom he had to pay infuriating reparations for many years. But his writings have given more comfort to the small audience who "get" him than the label pessimist would indicate.

So, Dave, on the eve of your freedom from daily commentary on the (in)Human Condition, I'd like to say thanks again for the comfort I got from mingling with you and other readers here and learning a hell of a lot about what matters. In the final accounting, not much really matters of course, but communing with fellow occupants of Jailhouse Earth does.

I tried blogging and writing oped columns for a few years - from 2008 through 2011 - none of my work as insightful as most of yours - and gave it up since one can only state the facts so many times. Writing for the Vail, CO paper was fun, since some of the readers were the 1% - but ultimately, fruitless. People ask me sometimes why I don't write for the paper anymore. I tell them that nothing's really changed and I just can't repeat myself. Even though peak oil's a thing of the past (I love this new meme, proclaimed literally at the peak of oil production, from the top of the plateau!) Even though the north pole is a lake again this year, already, as if that's been normal over the past few thousand years. Even though, well, look at any issue and find real improvement - one can't.

The schizophrenia of modern times was never more apparent to me than last weekend when I took the train - a 25 hour trip today compared to 16 hours in 1960 - and visited Chicago to see my son. There was a "food festival" taking place in Grant Park and it seemed the entire 4 million people of that metroplex were downtown, wandering about aimlessly, texting. Women were lined up 10 deep at the checkout counters of the bargain clothing shops along the Miracle Mile. I felt like I was in a zombie movie - but realized that this is the total reality for a vast number of people. It shook me a bit more than I expected.

I'll miss your thoughts on the actual reality. I wish I'd been in a better place so I could have contributed more than the $50 or so I've sent per year. I wish I'd have gone all in on a Dow ETF when you wrote in 2009 that the Fed was going to make its last stand defending the stock markets. I really wish I'd done that! But I can't blame you for backing away from this venture. You lasted a lot longer than I did at it.

It's too bad you are going offline, but I an understand why. Do you have any recommendations of writers or bloggers that are "partially conscious"? I know you like Kunstler for some reason, although he strikes me as being somewhat bigoted at times, but who else is out there? I think you totally misunderstand a certain Russian engineer and have not really read his work, but I won't mention his name... At the risk of bringing down the lighting bolts of disapproval, here are two people I think get it - John Michael Greer (aka the Archdruid) and Morris Berman.

I'll miss your posts, Dave. You are able to articulate so much better than I an accurate description of what I see around me.

Humans have a flawed, self-destructive nature, but it has been made so much worse by the Bernays legacy of brainwashing. We have a culture that teaches us pure "me-ism" and to express ourselves through consumerism.

I have read your posts for a few years and they all have have a bracing, refreshing quality that comes with not flinching from the truth. I will miss your commentaries. I also keep in mind the epigram, "Respect those who seek the truth, beware of those who find it". How to balance one's perceived superior insight without descending into arrogance and contempt? I don't know. In addition to the compelling content, I also find that your engaging writing style helps the unpleasant medicine go down more easily. Best wishes.

Dave I've been just an occasional visitor to your blog. But now as it ends... maybe you'll become even more valuable, like the work of dead painters?

I've been doing amateur radio for a bunch of non-profit stations, mostly about climate change. The climate may be changing, but we are not. Once you've seen the coming catastrophe, the "zombie" craze seems easier to understand. It's everything and everybody - an ocean of meaningless words followed up by the most destructive action imaginable.

Last week I listened to a jock telling his buddies about plans to fly the entire family (over 50 people)to Hawaii for a big wedding. I thought "Why not just buy little gravestones for your grand kids while you are there?" No clue about carbon damage.

Even when people are flooded out (Calgary, oil capital of Canada) or burned out, even when they suffer inside little air-conditioned rooms, they buy a big truck and shop like always. They can't help themselves.

Still, I think I'll keep on communicating, partly because I can't shut up. I'm not convinced you can either. We'll see.

I'm gonna miss reading your stuff every day. You probably have seen how I tend to wish people would change, even though I know they won't. It's refreshing in a way to get rid of the blame and just see it like watching a dog chase his tail.

We have such a range of human activities and human societies, but ultimately the "victor" is the one form of society that has spread across the globe. The 'consumer' society. That shows us something about our species.

If this is the ultimate form of human endeavor, it is a crazy one. We really are self-destructive. This site has convinced me that it was inevitable. I will miss your writing, at least partly because it is reassuring to know I'm not the only one who thinks this is insane.